Is Channukah really a Jewish holiday, or is it just a responsa to Christmas.
When did it actually arise?
https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms.31?lang=bi
https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2630.htm
Channukah - Psalm 30
Why 8 days?
- cleansing for making of pure oil. Could they not have gotten some other Jews who did not participate to make the oil?
https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102978/jewish/The-Story-of-Chanukah.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_cruse_of_oil
Second temple 563 BCE - 70 AD
Maccabee Revolt: 167 BCE - 164 BCE, victorious
Josephus says the temple did not have the “Festival of Lights” for 3½ years. This would fit into this time span.
Antiochus IV took the throne in 175 BCE. I assume he invaded in 168 BCE. In 167 BCE, Antiochus ordered an altar to Zeus erected in the Temple. He banned brit milah (circumcision) and ordered pigs to be sacrificed at the altar of the temple.
The Book of Haggai includes a prediction that the glory of the Second Temple would be greater than that of the first.[15][10] While the Temple may well have been consecrated in 516, construction and expansion may have continued as late as 500 BCE.[16]
Some of the original artifacts from the Temple of Solomon are not mentioned in the sources after its destruction in 586 BCE, and are presumed lost. The Second Temple lacked various holy articles, including the Ark of the Covenant[6][10] containing the Tablets of Stone, before which were placed the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod,[10] the Urim and Thummim[6][10] (divination objects contained in the Hoshen), the holy oil[10] and the sacred fire.[6][10] The Second Temple also included many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the Babylonians but restored by Cyrus the Great.[10][17]
No detailed description of the Temple’s architecture is given in the Hebrew Bible, save that it was sixty cubits in both width and height, and was constructed with stone and lumber.[18] In the Second Temple, the Holy of Holies (Kodesh Hakodashim) was separated by curtains rather than a wall as in the First Temple. Still, as in the Tabernacle, the Second Temple included the Menorah (golden lamp) for the Hekhal, the Table of Showbread and the golden altar of incense, with golden censers.[10]
Traditional rabbinic literature states that the Second Temple stood for 420 years, and, based on the 2nd-century work Seder Olam Rabbah, placed construction in 356 BCE (3824 AM), 164 years later than academic estimates, and destruction in 68 CE (3828 AM).[19][b]
According to the Babylonian Talmud,[24] the Temple lacked the Shekhinah (the dwelling or settling divine presence of God) and the Ruach HaKodesh (holy spirit) present in the First Temple.
The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus narrates in his book, Jewish Antiquities XII, how the victorious Judas Maccabeus ordered lavish yearly eight-day festivities after rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem that had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.[40] Josephus does not say the festival was called Hanukkah but rather the “Festival of Lights”: